Fun for me and fun for Scott

Last week I went on a field trip with Holly and the rest of the sixth grade at her school. To save money we didn't use buses so I got to drive 5 kids to the International District in Seattle and spend the day with them there. My mom tended my 3 little kids in the morning and then my good friend Brooke came over to my house to tend them in the afternoon. Field trips are so hard to go on when you have little kids at home so I am very appreciative of my mom and Brooke. Holly was very excited to have me finally attend a field trip with her in Washington!


These are the five kids in my group. Three girls and two boys. All were very well behaved so I was lucky. Some of the other moms I talked to had difficult groups.

Here they are in the Asian grocery store Uwajimaya. This place was awesome! They had a big gift section with fancy chopsticks, dishes, fans, lanterns, oragami paper, and of course lots of Hello Kitty. I bought some Japanese candy and a cute postcard with artwork from the Japanese Illustrator Aki Sogabe. Holly bought some blue flowered chopsticks and a blue decorative umbrella that is now hanging upside down from the ceiling in her room. We ate lunch at the food court in this store.

We tried on these hats but didn't buy them. Lots of the 6th graders did buy them though. A fortune cookie factory was one of the places we got to visit on our scavenger hunt. We all bought bags of fortune cookies. They were fresh and delicious. I loved getting good fortunes in all of my cookies, it made for a happy day!

Scott's fun was that he was invited by his boss to attend a Mariners baseball game last week. They were VIP tickets that included free parking, a delicious buffet, seats right behind the batter, and free consessions while watching. He had a great time and the Mariners even pulled off a win in the last inning. Scott is sitting to the right of the batter. He is in the second row second person on the right. See if you can see his cute head. The last Mariners game he attended was 13 years ago so this was a real treat.

Today I am thankful that:

*the dogwood tree we planted last month is blooming

*the girls have all had a great year of school--just 3 more weeks till summer!

*I get to interact with wonderful ladies in my ward as I serve in the Young Women's program

I can ride my bike again!

I have always loved to ride bikes. But since having children I haven't done it regularly. For years I didn't even have a bike, but about 3 years ago I got one from my brother. When Scott was home to tend the little kids I would go on bike rides by myself or with one of the big girls. I have always wanted one of those bike trailers but they seemed too expensive and too big to store. But last Saturday I went out to garage sales with the back seat removed from my van and I came across a nice bike trailer for $25. I thought, "I've got room in the van..what have I got to lose. If I don't like it I can definately resale it on Craislist for $25 or more". So I bought it. During the past week I have gone on 3 bike rides with the kidos. It is great and we can go 3 times as far as we did on a walk in the same amount of time. Hills are a little tough with the added weight so I try to stay on flat areas. It even folds up nicely. It is folded up in our garage in the picture below. The bike wheels can come off too but since I plan to use it again soon I didn't take them off.

Here is a video of me towing the trailer behind my bike (it is just 9 seconds long). I've only got one child in it but it does seat two. And I do normally have them wear helmets. C:

Anyone want to join me for a bike ride? I'm hoping to have a summer full of them.

Is it just my kids?

I'm just wondering if your kids love to play with pillows too?

Do they gather pillows from all over the house and put them in a big pile to jump into?

Do they line them up in a row and run back and forth on them?

That's what my kids did today. I'm always amazed how much energy they have for gathering all the pillows and then they have no energy to put them away. Oh--to be a kid again!Nathan thought they made a good step stool to get items up by the TV which are normally out of his reach.

It looks like Holly is ready to make a jumping start from the chairs at the far end.

Today I'm thankful that:

*We have a bunny that hops through our backyard on occassion--it is so cute!

*I get to go on field trip with Holly's class

*Melissa finished her year of preschool--no more sitting in the high school traffic to pick her up

So Long Civic

Last night we said goodbye to our Civic. We have loved this car. We bought it shortly after Holly was born 12 years ago. It was brand new and such an improvement over the 1985 Ford Crown Victoria we had been driving at the time. The Ford was gigantic with red interior and the trunk was large enough to fit a twin mattress. Our Civic was new, sporty and fun.
This civic drove us as we moved from Oregon to Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. It was car transported to Arizona where it endured the heat for 3 years and then was car transported to Washington where we live today. It was our main family car for over 6 years and Scott's work car for the other 6. It has been very reliable and a pleasure to drive. But we never expected to have it for 12 years. It hit 100,000 a few months ago and was starting to show signs of wear so we replaced it with a 2009 Hyndai Sonata.

We stuck with the color silver because it is our favorite. This car has lots of cool features like a clicker for the doors and trunk, a usb drive that connects to the radio for convenient listening to conference talks, and that new car smell. Here is a picture of our Civic and Sonata side by side.

We are hoping this car will be as fun and reliable as the Civic was for the next 10 years.

Today I am thankful that:

*my kids all love me as their mother despite my imperfections

*I got a new calling at church to serve with the young women over Holly's class

*I got to watch another fun season of the Amazing Race with Scott

Trip to the Botanical Gardens

Today the girls had a day off of school and the weather was perfect so we headed over to the Bellevue Botanical Garden. We visit there every December to see the fabulous Christmas light displays but this was our first visit there to see the garden. After a week of rain it was a warm 62 degrees at the garden and we didn't even need our coats.
There are little bridges that cross this waterfall up above. The girls loved running across them.

I thought it was cute that they planted a fern in the old stump. Cute girls too!

Japanese garden flowers--wish I knew what they are so I could plant some in my yard.

Posing on the frog of course. I had to take a picture of each girl having their turn on the frog.

After an hour at the garden we headed over to Wendy's. I love the Wendy's jr. bacon cheeseburger and since we don't have a Wendy's by our house I arranged for us to eat lunch there today. For less than $15 we all ate well so I can't complain. I always feel like we are making a spectacle in public places with so many kids but they were all helpful and well behaved today so it all went well.

Today I am thankful that

*Scott gets to go on the campout with the 11year old scouts tonight--he really likes these boys!

*I get to go to our stake's youth musical tommorrow with my big girls.

*the sunshine---I love how it energizes me and I just feel happier when it is out.

New Toys and Fun Songs

The start of May marked the start of garage sale season. I hit some sales on both Friday and Saturday and stocked up on cars for Nathan and some hats for him. He has quite the fasination with hats lately. He always points them out in books and when we see someone wearing one. The way he says hat is by patting his head and saying car. Silly boy! All the cars you see in front of him we bought at the garage sales. I spent about $7 on them in all so not bad.
Both Holly and Emily were in a school music concert last week. Holly sang with the 6th grade and Emily sang as part of the choir. The first video is of Holly. She is on the far right with the blue jacket on. She is still quite a shy girl and was a little imbarrassed singing but she did a great job. The second video is of Emily singing a song from the musical "Wicked". She loves to sing and has really enjoyed her first year of choir. The girl just to the right of her is a semi-relative. She is the neice of my brother's wife. Both video clips are less than 30 seconds in length. Enjoy!

Today I am thankful that
*We finally bought a new car--we'd been looking for weeks
*It hailed--it's always so exciting to hear and see it falling!
*I had a wonderful phone visit with my sister in law--Thanks c: